I definitely think advertising and knowledge about what the heck the product is was a huge problem in the beginning and remains a problem to a lesser extent today. There have been so many things wrong with it that it's really hard to nail down one particular issue that's caused this.

As I mention in the previous post, I think cost has a lot to do with it. When it launched it was 300/350. That's just too much for most people to pay for a Nintendo console since it's a 2nd console for them. $250 seems to be the sweet spot and has help immensely during the holidays to the point that some of the stores near me sold out of Wii U's. That said, they only had a handful in stock so it's not saying a lot to say they sold out.

There's the issue with the controller, many people think it's a competitor with the iPad and they've already got an iPad (or Android tablet).

The first year they had almost no games, especially the ones that would draw people in. They have no 3rd party support going forward.

Lastly, they've had such bad press over the last year that everyone has been expecting steep discount and possible discontinuation of the platform which depresses demand as people would rather take a wait and see approach. In other words, their very failure during the last year has contributed to further failure.

That is an insanely sensationalist article. The Wii U is struggling for sure. But the 3DS sold over 11 million consoles in america alone last year...

One would have nothing to do with another. they aren't going to look at the overall sales, they are going to look at each console's individual sales.

also i don't know what's sensationalist about the article, granted i did not read the entire thing and only read the quotes. they did say they failed. what else is there?

@Typical. am i not supposed to be happy about this? nintendo going third party would be amazing, that is assuming that they'd still make all the games they already do.

but it is possible that nintendo might just ditch this and either try another console (not likely due to consumer confidence...as Wii-U is so new) or like they said, might look into mobile gaming...(still not sure about this one).

i do think they might just pull the plug. kinda sad but...they were already going down if it weren't for the Wii and i had said for years that they had no plan after the Wii, no one listened! you can't keep going without a foundation. they abandoned their core and went with non-gamers, making them into gamers.

well guess what, non-gamers also don't continue to support you. i can guarantee you that most Wii users still only have their wii sports and nothing else (or whatever they bought in the beginning). heck, even the mainstream are like that. i see so many people who had the PS2 (one of the most successful consoles ever) and still only had 6-7 games over the entire generation! wtf is that!

i really hope they do pull the plug and bring all those games over to the other two consoles. That would be awesome.

Nintendo will absolutely not be going 3rd party. One struggling console will not force Nintendo to drop out. If anything, it will force Nintendo to go back to competing against it's competitors. This means having the best graphics and console overall. Ever since Microsoft entered the gaming industry, it seems like Nintendo backed off trying to make the most powerful console. Nintendo is learning that graphics mean quite a bit to gamers.

And the profit Nintendo made from the Wii alone is enough to keep the Wii U afloat. But I think the Wii U will have the shortest life span of any Nintendo home console.

Nintendo will absolutely not be going 3rd party. One struggling console will not force Nintendo to drop out. If anything, it will force Nintendo to go back to competing against it's competitors. This means having the best graphics and console overall. Ever since Microsoft entered the gaming industry, it seems like Nintendo backed off trying to make the most powerful console. Nintendo is learning that graphics mean quite a bit to gamers.

And the profit Nintendo made from the Wii alone is enough to keep the Wii U afloat. But I think the Wii U will have the shortest life span of any Nintendo home console.

i would disagree. while i think there is definitely a chance they might come back but they are in no position to spend billions of dollars to make a console that would compete with the Xbox One and PS4. Not anytime soon. they can try and carve out another niche but Wii U was supposed to be that.

they are going to have to wait and just ride the rest of this generation out with price cuts and maybe...just maybe getting off their asses and actually spending their revenues (and thus profits) back into the company. it seems like they made all those billions of dollars and really, nothing came out of it. they don't reinvest. that's their biggest issue. they don't want to.

They're stuck with Wii-U right now, if they abandon it, they might as well pull out of the race altogether. consumers are going to lose confidence, it will be bad for their image and might even hurt some ongoing 3DS sales.

so i think they will just do whatever they can to ride this out and come back with a new plan. i just don't think they will compete with Sony or MS. they don't have the foundation and they don't take risks...Wii was definitely a risk but if you think about it, they had no other choice or chance. they couldn't compete with Sony directly. Now they can't compete indirectly either. They just don't like to build a foundation, I do not know or understand why. they had the perfect opportunity with the Wii but they $#@!ed it up. now they don't have the core (or maybe only the cores are still supporting them, irony) and non-gamers never cared to begin with, they just wanted to be with the fad.

I can't see anything other than them pulling out or just sticking out and trying once more with a less complicated and expensive console.

it will take them a decade to come to where MS and Sony are right now, only to realize that MS/Sony are another decade ahead.

One would have nothing to do with another. they aren't going to look at the overall sales, they are going to look at each console's individual sales.

also i don't know what's sensationalist about the article, granted i did not read the entire thing and only read the quotes. they did say they failed. what else is there?

@Typical. am i not supposed to be happy about this? nintendo going third party would be amazing, that is assuming that they'd still make all the games they already do.

but it is possible that nintendo might just ditch this and either try another console (not likely due to consumer confidence...as Wii-U is so new) or like they said, might look into mobile gaming...(still not sure about this one).

i do think they might just pull the plug. kinda sad but...they were already going down if it weren't for the Wii and i had said for years that they had no plan after the Wii, no one listened! you can't keep going without a foundation. they abandoned their core and went with non-gamers, making them into gamers.

well guess what, non-gamers also don't continue to support you. i can guarantee you that most Wii users still only have their wii sports and nothing else (or whatever they bought in the beginning). heck, even the mainstream are like that. i see so many people who had the PS2 (one of the most successful consoles ever) and still only had 6-7 games over the entire generation! wtf is that!

i really hope they do pull the plug and bring all those games over to the other two consoles. That would be awesome.

Are you supposed to be happy about it? I don't think it matters to most people one way or the other. I own a Wii U and I don't really care because I only paid about $200 for it. It would be nice to be able to play Nintendo games without buying a secondary console going forward as that would be a definite win for consumers. My impression is that they'll put out tetris or some other casual style game on smartphones/tablets and continue to put out 3DS games on the 3DS hardware. They'll probably go 3rd party on home consoles.

When there's a billion people with smartphones out there, selling 1 or 2 or 3 million tetris games for $1 each is not that difficult as it's only 1/10th of 1 percent of the people with them. Compare that to selling games on a platform with 10 million customers. Mario, Zelda, and other games that require better controls will still need the 3DS or a home console controller unless they're able to create a USB attachment for iOS/Android devices but I doubt they'd do that - at least right out of the gate.

Nintendo's biggest challenge is to pump out a console that is near exact in power as their competition. Say I am a developer, will I want to down grade my game drastically in order for it to function on the Wii U? Or will I want to deliver a game that takes full advantage of the other two consoles? The loss of support is killing them, and the year after year release of 30 Mario games has run its course. Where are the new IP's? Instead we get Mario in every possible scenario known to man. It is not cutting it, and it has finally caught up to Nintendo. The Wii sold so well because it offered a new gaming experience, but never delivered blockbuster games (in my opinion). I can go back and name many "classic" games from my 360 and PS3, but can't name one that was overly memorable from the Wii. It was a gimmick which took the gaming world by storm, but in order to stay relevant you need more than a gimmick, you need what matters most, quality content.

NPD report is out. Here's what's been calculated on various Internet sites based on the convoluted information released. Wii U sold about 55k. Xbox One sold about 145k. PS4 sold about 290k. These are US sales only.

hmm 55k doesn't seem extremely bad but then again, i'm sure they aren't going to wait for something to happen. man, i know this sounds wrong lol but i hope they pull out soon and then start putting out multiplat games...would love to play some of their games on the PS4.

hmm 55k doesn't seem extremely bad but then again, i'm sure they aren't going to wait for something to happen. man, i know this sounds wrong lol but i hope they pull out soon and then start putting out multiplat games...would love to play some of their games on the PS4.

That did sound wrong! Jokes aside, 55,000 a month is very bad. They've got a console that's $200 more selling 3X their numbers and a console that's $100 more selling 6X their numbers. If you think about it like this, 50k times 10 months is only 550k sold from Jan-Oct. Then if they match last year's holiday sales they'll sell another 2.2 million from Nov-Dec. That means MAYBE they'll sell 3 million the entire year. There's the possibility that a couple of their big games this year can push a lot of consoles but I don't see it happening. These are Dreamcast numbers (and I mean this literally - not in the overblown "OMGZ YOU'VE BEEN DREAMCASTED" way).

Most likely Mario Kart, Smash, X, and whatever else they've got coming won't be able to push more than a few hundred thousand consoles. They'll probably hit 3 million for the year with these big titles and if Nintendo really pulls out all the stops MAYBE they can hit 4 million. 5-6 seems impossible.

edit:
To put this into a different perspective. At a rate of 55k per month, that's 660k over 12 months. The PS4 is doing almost 300k in a single month. 55k is awful.

They want to feel accomplished
They are time constrained
They want everything everywhere accessible
They want THEIR content when they want to use it
They want to sit back and relax and unwind from the day
They want to finish what they start (feel accomplished).

If we go with this dichotomy of feeling accomplished, on the go, content on demand, everything when you want, yet somehow be able to unwind and relax...

I still stick with my idea that Nintendo has to do what... EVERYONE ELSE DON'T.
LOL.

I still see Nintendo leveraging the DS platform and expanding it for their next game system.

If you accept that PS3 or better graphics can be had in a mobile platform soon, then Nintendo can launch a mobile machine that docks at home to be blown up on the big screen.
I still think they have to go in that direction.

Their device should also have exceptional web browser access, popular apps, and cloud storage services.
It should allow access to non core services for third parties to assist in consumer acceptance of their devices.
If Nintendo doesn't want to sell movies, great, Netflix, Hulu, etc, like on the Wii U now.
a Mobile Nintendo device with all of this that lets you continue seamlessly at home would be a winner and more of an in your face game changer than some thing.

They want to feel accomplished
They are time constrained
They want everything everywhere accessible
They want THEIR content when they want to use it
They want to sit back and relax and unwind from the day
They want to finish what they start (feel accomplished).

If we go with this dichotomy of feeling accomplished, on the go, content on demand, everything when you want, yet somehow be able to unwind and relax...

I still stick with my idea that Nintendo has to do what... EVERYONE ELSE DON'T.
LOL.

I still see Nintendo leveraging the DS platform and expanding it for their next game system.

If you accept that PS3 or better graphics can be had in a mobile platform soon, then Nintendo can launch a mobile machine that docks at home to be blown up on the big screen.
I still think they have to go in that direction.

Their device should also have exceptional web browser access, popular apps, and cloud storage services.
It should allow access to non core services for third parties to assist in consumer acceptance of their devices.
If Nintendo doesn't want to sell movies, great, Netflix, Hulu, etc, like on the Wii U now.
a Mobile Nintendo device with all of this that lets you continue seamlessly at home would be a winner and more of an in your face game changer than some thing.

I'm just going to ignore all the fanboys and sales figures because what do they have in common? A bunch of bull$#@! that doesn't even matter. It feels like everybody nowadays is so concerned about their console/handheld selling well, and I know that it effects us as a consumer but why don't we just enjoy our system and play video games like we always have? Same $#@! with the Vita. I almost feel like most of people usually don't even really play video games anymore, they're just into video game politics lol.

I'm just going to ignore all the fanboys and sales figures because what do they have in common? A bunch of bull$#@! that doesn't even matter. It feels like everybody nowadays is so concerned about their console/handheld selling well, and I know that it effects us as a consumer but why don't we just enjoy our system and play video games like we always have? Same $#@! with the Vita. I almost feel like most of people usually don't even really play video games anymore, they're just into video game politics lol.

Going to go play MH3 on my WiiU and some Persona4 later on my Vita.

Yeah....poor sales figures haven't affected my enjoyment of the Vita one bit. Folks just don't know what they are missing. And I've heard a lot of praise from people who own the Wii U so feel like I am missing out there. Hopefully, I'll be able to pick one up in the next month or two.

Yeah....poor sales figures haven't affected my enjoyment of the Vita one bit. Folks just don't know what they are missing. And I've heard a lot of praise from people who own the Wii U so feel like I am missing out there. Hopefully, I'll be able to pick one up in the next month or two.

You can't prove a negative. You have no idea if poor sales effected your enjoyment because you have no idea how much more enjoyment you would have had if it had good sales. If the Vita sold 200 million consoles then you'd have a flood of software and plenty of great titles to chose from and not just 2 or 3 good games made by Sony first party developers.

Sales to matter because they impact how much support the console gets. For people that have more than one platform it doesn't matter because they can play games on the other platform. Some people only buy Nintendo consoles and for them, they're really getting screwed and the numbers matter a lot for them.

Additionally, Nintendo can't make a profit on software if they don't have a large enough install base. If you have a 5 million install base, you can't expect half those people to buy most games. Sure there will be a couple of the big titles but most games are going to lose money. Poor hardware sales leads to poor software sales. Poor software sales leads to a shorter console life. This should matter to everyone with a Wii U.

You can't prove a negative. You have no idea if poor sales effected your enjoyment because you have no idea how much more enjoyment you would have had if it had good sales. If the Vita sold 200 million consoles then you'd have a flood of software and plenty of great titles to chose from and not just 2 or 3 good games made by Sony first party developers.

Sales to matter because they impact how much support the console gets. For people that have more than one platform it doesn't matter because they can play games on the other platform. Some people only buy Nintendo consoles and for them, they're really getting screwed and the numbers matter a lot for them.

Additionally, Nintendo can't make a profit on software if they don't have a large enough install base. If you have a 5 million install base, you can't expect half those people to buy most games. Sure there will be a couple of the big titles but most games are going to lose money. Poor hardware sales leads to poor software sales. Poor software sales leads to a shorter console life. This should matter to everyone with a Wii U.

So far I've enjoyed my Vita more than my 3DS (still love the 3DS though). One has a ton of software, the other not nearly as much. Sales matter, but they don't govern my enjoyment. Bottom line....I don't need sales figures to determine if I am enjoying something or not.

So far I've enjoyed my Vita more than my 3DS (still love the 3DS though). One has a ton of software, the other not nearly as much. Sales matter, but they don't govern my enjoyment. Bottom line....I don't need sales figures to determine if I am enjoying something or not.

Of course sales numbers don't effect if you're enjoying a game. Why would they and why do people post things like this? I've never seen a single person on the Internet say that a game wasn't fun because it sold poorly. All I see are people coming out and saying that the poor sales didn't make a difference to their enjoyment. Personally, I don't play handhelds and I haven't been interested in them since I was a kid so it makes no difference to me what comes out for those consoles but my point was that maybe you could enjoy it even MORE if more great games came out. You'll never know. I never said you don't enjoy what you have. Ridiculous.

If you ONLY had a Wii U and no other console, i guarantee that you'd care a lot what the console sold.

Of course sales numbers don't effect if you're enjoying a game. Why would they and why do people post things like this? I've never seen a single person on the Internet say that a game wasn't fun because it sold poorly. All I see are people coming out and saying that the poor sales didn't make a difference to their enjoyment. Personally, I don't play handhelds and I haven't been interested in them since I was a kid so it makes no difference to me what comes out for those consoles but my point was that maybe you could enjoy it even MORE if more great games came out. You'll never know. I never said you don't enjoy what you have. Ridiculous.

If you ONLY had a Wii U and no other console, i guarantee that you'd care a lot what the console sold.

lol....I'm not going to obsess over hypotheticals. Have at it.

edit: and my previous post wasn't correcting you. not idea what was so "ridiculous"

Of course sales numbers don't effect if you're enjoying a game. Why would they and why do people post things like this? I've never seen a single person on the Internet say that a game wasn't fun because it sold poorly. All I see are people coming out and saying that the poor sales didn't make a difference to their enjoyment. Personally, I don't play handhelds and I haven't been interested in them since I was a kid so it makes no difference to me what comes out for those consoles but my point was that maybe you could enjoy it even MORE if more great games came out. You'll never know. I never said you don't enjoy what you have. Ridiculous.

If you ONLY had a Wii U and no other console, i guarantee that you'd care a lot what the console sold.

You can say this about EVERTYTHING lol. If the iPhone/SamsungTV/RazerLaptop/etc sold way more they'd have more features, support, etc. People are so delusional over sales. A good example is the Gamecube sold decent but not even close to the PS2, I bought one recently to see what I missed out on and there was so many damn games that were of higher quality than almost any PS2 game I ever played and I've always been a Sony kid and always most likely will be.

We are gamers it's that simple, we aren't politicians or businessmen. We play video games for fun, if a silly sales number is keeping you from buying it then you care too much about everyone else's opinion.

You can say this about EVERTYTHING lol. If the iPhone/SamsungTV/RazerLaptop/etc sold way more they'd have more features, support, etc. People are so delusional over sales. A good example is the Gamecube sold decent but not even close to the PS2, I bought one recently to see what I missed out on and there was so many damn games that were of higher quality than almost any PS2 game I ever played and I've always been a Sony kid and always most likely will be.

We are gamers it's that simple, we aren't politicians or businessmen. We play video games for fun, if a silly sales number is keeping you from buying it then you care too much about everyone else's opinion.

Exactly. Does the system have enough games? That is what I ask myself. I enjoy talking sales numbers just like a lot of people, but when it comes to spending my own money, I don't necessarily follow the crowd. I look at what the system has to offer and decide if there is enough there to warrant a purchase. I labored over the Vita library of games before I bought one and I'm glad I did. Sales be damned. Hoping to get Wii U this year for the same reason. There is enough there to warrant a purchase.

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